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GIFT  OF 


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Christian  Science  Healing 

versus 

Mental  Suggestion 


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Frederick  Dixon,  C.S.B. 


WORKS  ON  CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

Written  by  MARY  BAKER  EDDY 

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ALLISON    V.    STEWART,  ^"'StV  Masks'"  U.'l  T^'  8 


msmsmmm^m 


Christian   Science   Healing 


versus 


Mental  Suggestion 


FREDERICK  DIXON,  C.S.B. 

IN   THE 
WEEKLY  BUDGET,  LONDON,  ENGLAITO 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE  PUBLISHING  SOCIETY 

FALMOUTH  AND  ST.  PAUL  STREETS 

BOSTON,  MASSACHUSETTS 

U.  S.  A. 


Copyright,  1912,  by 
The  Christian  Science  Publishing  Society. 


♦  CA^ 


CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE  HEALING 

versus 

MENTAL    SUGGESTION 

npHERE  is,  perhaps,  no  question  occupying  the 
attention  of  the  public  today,  a  correct  understand- 
ing of  which  is  more  essential  to  its  welfare,  than  that 
which  is  summed  up  in  the  phrase  "mental  healing." 
It  is,  therefore,  peculiarly  desirable  that,  at  a  time 
when  this  treatment  is  surely  and  rapidly  taking  its 
place  as  a  recognized  therapeutic  medium,  some 
explanation  of  such  antithetic  systems  as  Christian 
Science  and  mental  suggestion  should  be  forth- 
coming. 

Mental  suggestion  is  by  no  means  the  new  dis- 
covery that  the  "man  in  the  street"  is  apt  to  regard 
it.  It  is  as  old  as  the  human  mind,  and  is  based  on 
that  inherent  tendency  toward  a  belief  .in  dualism 
which  seems  to  hypnotize  the  race.  The  dualism  ulti- 
mately resolves  itself  into  a  belief  in  good  and  evil,  a 
belief  which  found  expression  in  the  metaphor  of  the 
tree  in  the  Jehovistie  document  of  Genesis.  If  the 
admission  is  once  made  that,  speaking  absolutely,  evil 
is  not  real,  the  deduction  that  the  human  mind, 
with  its  claim  of  intelligence,  will-power,  thought- 
transference — in  short,  of  suggestion  in  any  form — is 
not  a  factor  in  spiritual  healing,  must  inevitably 
follow. 

363220 


4  j;iJP;JSTl;A^N    SqiENCE    HEALING 

That  mental  suggestion,  from  a  standpoint  of  rela- 
tive truth,  may  produce  certain  changes  in  a  human 
mentality  or  in  physical  conditions  is  nothing  to  the 
point.  It  only  proves  that  certain  effects  follow,  under 
certain  conditions,  until  a  better  knowledge  of  law 
enables  you  to  ignore  these  conditions  which  are 
imposed  by  ignorance. 

LIMITATIONS,    NOT    LAWS 

The  primitive  man,  for  instance,  crept  round  his 
coasts  in  a  canoe.  Gradually  the  canoe  developed  into 
a  galley,  in  which  longer  voyages  in  more  difficult, 
circumstances  became  a  possibility.  The  evolution 
of  the  sailing  ship  led  to  the  discarding  of  the  galley, 
but  still  human  efforts  were  limited  by  the  laws  im- 
posed by  tides  and  winds.  The  era  of  the  steamship 
overcame  the  restrictions  which  had  existed  for  sailing 
ships.  What  had  appeared  to  be  laws  were  found  to 
be  nothing  more  than  the  limitations  of  ignorance. 
Men  began  to  perceive  that  they  had  been  battling  not 
so  much  against  the  laws  of  nature  as  against  their 
own  self-imposed  beliefs  of  time  and  space. 

To  Mrs.  Eddy  it  occurred  that  the  gospels  recorded 
a  fact  always  passed  over  as  supernatural  and  imprac- 
tical— the  fact  that  Jesus  had  carried  the  boat  across 
the  lake  in  an  instant.  It  was  an  indication  of  spirit- 
ual law  which  must  have  struck  her  in  the  way  that  the 
steam  issuing  from  the  kettle  appealed  to  Watt's  per- 
ception of  physical  law,  and  it  was  only  one  indication 
among  many.  All  that  followed,  to  a  person  of  her 
intense   spiritual  alertness,  was  not  only  natural:  it 


VERSUS    MENTAL   SUGGESTION  5 

was  inevitable.  Huxley  once  said  that  when  a  phys- 
ical phenomenon  is  observed  which  appears  contrary 
to  an  existing  acceptance  of  law,  it  is  more  intelligent 
to  recognize  a  result  of  a  hitherto  unsuspected  law 
than  to  proceed  to  acclaim  a  miracle.  In  the  Bible 
Mrs.  Eddy  found  the  record  of  numerous  phenomena 
which  the  world  had  learned  to  regard  as  supernatural 
violations  of  law.  She  knew,  however,  that  a  violated 
law  never  had  been  a  law,  therefore  some  other  ex- 
planation was  necessary.  She  forestalled  Huxley's 
advice,  and  recorded  her  action  in  that  well-known 
passage,  on  page  109  of  Science  and  Health:  "I  knew 
the  Principle  of  all  harmonious  Mind-action  to  be 
God,  and  that  cures  were  produced  in  primitive 
Christian  healing  by  holy,  uplifting  faith;  but  I  must 
know  the  Science  of  this  healing,  and  I  won  my  way 
to  absolute  conclusions  through  divine  revelation, 
reason,  and  demonstration." 

BELIEF    IN    DUALISM 

This  discovery  of  the  Science  of  spiritual  law  which 
Jesus  taught  in  his  theology  and  demonstrated  in  his 
miracles  or  object-lessons  brought  with  it  the  percep- 
tion that  the  ignorance  of  that  law  constituted  the 
belief  in  the  counterfeit  comprised  in  material  law. 
Now,  the  admission  that  material  law  is  the  expression 
of  the  absolute  reduces  man  to  the  acceptance  of  the 
dualism  which  acknowledges  good  and  evil  as  power. 
It  is  consequently  necessary  to  show  that  evil  is  only 
an  expression  of  human  ignorance,  the  belief  in  which 
can  be  corrected  and  destroyed  by  that  knowledge  of 


()  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

absolute  Truth  which  Jesus  said  would  free  the  world; 
and  what  could  it  free  it  from  but  ignorance? 

The  primitive  man,  ignorant  of  what  is  called  phys- 
ical law,  listening  to  the  thunder  crashing  amid  the 
mountain-tops,  or  the  wind  moaning  over  the  ocean, 
deified  his  own  fears,  and  made  his  graven  image  of 
Jupiter  Tonans,  or  the  demon  of  the  southwest  wind. 
Thus,  gradually,  there  sprang  up  that  army  of  "other 
gods"  whom  the  Israelites  so  persistently  "sought 
after,"  and  the  prophets  so  ruthlessly  "cut  off."  As 
time  went  on,  the  evil  deities  gained  in  popularity,  at 
the  expense  of  the  good,  for  the  worshipers,  convinced 
that  their  deities  were  of  like  passions  with  them- 
selves, came  naturally  to  devote  themselves  less  to 
adoring  those  they  regarded  as  benign,  than  to  pla- 
cating those  they  were  convinced  were  inimical.  A 
single  example,  taken  from  the  nature-worship  out  of 
which  idolatry  grew,  will  be  sufficient. 

To  the  primitive  people,  little  accustomed  to  going 
down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  the  ocean  presented  a  picture 
of  fury  and  desolation  which  found  expression  in  their 
acceptance  of  it  as  the  type  of  evil  and  chaos.  When 
darkness  fell  over  the  tempest-driven  waters,  it 
seemed  as  though  evil  had  made  itself  master  of  all, 
and  consequently  the  rising  sun  brought  hope  and 
courage  to  their  hearts.  In  this  way,  the  eastern 
tribesmen,  accustomed  to  personify  every  object, 
adopted  the  word  "Tehom,"  as  the  type  of  evil.  It 
is  a  Semitic  word,  commonly  derived  by  Hebraists 
from  the  verb  hurrif  which  is  supposed  to  have  orig- 
inated from  the  sound  of  the  incoming  tide.     In  our 


VERSUS   MENTAL   SUGGESTION  7 

own  language,  we  still  have  it  in  the  "humming  tide" 
of  Milton  and  the  "hoaming  sea"  of  Dryden.  The 
writer  of  the  Elohistic  document  of  Genesis  uses  it 
to  signify  chaos,  constructing  his  sentence,  as  Dr. 
Palmer  points  out,  without  the  article,  so  as  to  neces- 
sitate the  translation,  "Darkness  was  upon  the  face 
of  deep."  This  word,  "Tehom,"  is  a  type  of  evil. 
It  is  the  equivalent  of  the  Assyrian  "Tiamat,"  and 
of  a  long  line  of  synonyms  stretching  through  the 
languages  of  the  world. 

This  personification  of  the  restless  power  of  evil, 
typified  by  the  heaving  sea,  gradually  took  the  form 
of  a  monster,  the  dragon  of  darkness;  and  so  the 
dragon  passed  into  the  folk-lore  of  the  world  as  the 
personification  of  evil,  whether  in  the  Assyrian  tab- 
lets, the  apocryphal  book  of  "Bel  and  the  Dragon," 
the  Revelation  of  John,  the  mythology  of  Europe,  the 
legends  of  the  Ojibway  Indians,  or  the  ballads  of 
the  nursery. 

STORY    OF    MERODACH 

No  matter,  however,  to  what  extent  a  belief  in  the 
power  of  evil  may  be  embedded  in  the  human  con- 
sciousness, nothing  can  destroy  the  consciousness  of 
the  reality  and  power  of  good.  In  this  way  it  came 
to  pass  that  even  while  the  legend  of  "Tiamat"  was 
being  spun,  an  understanding  of  Truth  was  manifest- 
ing itself  in  the  story  of  "Merodach."  Merodach  was 
the  Sun-god,  rising,  no  matter  how  dark  or  tempest- 
uous the  night,  to  scatter  his  chariots  over  the  horizon, 
in  the  dawn,  lifting  his  head,  as  Jeremy  Taylor  puts 


8  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

it,  over  the  eastern  hills,  "thrusting  out  his  golden 
horns,  like  those  which  decked  the  brow  of  Moses." 
The  victory  of  Merodach  is,  perhaps,  the  earliest 
indication  of  the  human  realization  of  the  inevitable 
victory  of  Truth  over  error.  We  meet  it  no  matter 
where  we  turn ;  in  the  story  of  Apollo  and  the  Python, 
in  that  of  St.  George  and  the  Dragon,  and  nowhere 
more  clearly  than  in  the  narratives  of  the  Bible. 

The  Bible  is  an  eastern  book,  filled,  as  an  eastern 
book  would  be,  with  all  the  allegory  and  imagery  of 
expression  inherent  in  the  eastern  mind.  It  is  not  a 
book,  as  is  sometimes  argued,  of  verbal  inspiration,  so 
sacred  in  every  letter  that  not  even  "the  blessed  word 
Mesopotamia"  could  be  deleted  without  sacrilege.  It 
is  a  series  of  documents,  biblia,  composed  by  men  in 
different  ages  and  of  different  grades  of  spiritual 
understanding,  for  the  purpose  of  unfolding  the  evo- 
lution of  Truth  in  the  human  consciousness.  Here, 
at  the  very  outset,  we  have  the  sea,  "Tehom,"  taken 
as  the  type  of  evil,  and  the  serpent,  or  dragon,  as  the 
personification  of  it,  and  here  we  have  the  omnipo- 
tence of  good  proclaimed:  "And  the  Spirit  of  God 
moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters.  And  God  said, 
Let  there  be  light:  and  there  was  light." 

MEANING    OF    THE    DELUGE 

When  the  wickedness  of  the  earth  grew  to  such  a 
pitch  that  of  mortal  man  it  could  only  be  said  that 
"every  imagination  of  the  thoughts  of  his  heart  was 
only  evil  continually,"  what  Mrs.  Eddy  has  termed,  on 
page  405  of  Science  and  Health,  the  necessity  of  sin  to 


VERSUS   MENTAL   SUGGESTION  9 

destroy  itself,  was  expressed  in  the  deluge.  Noah, 
however,  and  his  household,  found  safety  in  the  ark, 
riding  out,  in  their  perception  of  Truth,  the  storm, 
the  bounds  of  whose  destroying  power  are  shown, 
from  one  end  of  the  Bible  to  the  other,  to  be  control- 
lable through  spiritual  understanding:  "Hitherto  shalt 
thou  come,  but  no  further:  and  here  shall  thy  proud 
waves  be  stayed." 

It  was  into  the  sea,  into  error,  that  Jonah  fell,  when 
he  was  swallowed  by  the  tannin,  the  sea  monster,  or 
personification  of  error.  It  was  from  the  sea  that  the 
dragon  of  Revelation  arose,  and  it  was  into  the  sea 
that  it  was  cast  back;  and  just  as  the  book  of  Genesis 
opens  with  the  announcement  that  "the  Spirit  of  God 
moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters,"  so  the  book  of 
Revelation  closes  with  the  intimation  of  "a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth:  for  the  first  heaven  and  the  first 
earth  were  passed  away;  and  there  was  no  more 
sea." 

To  the  people  for  whose  guidance  these  books  were 
written,  evil  was  very  real  and  very  powerful.  They 
personified  it,  not  merely  as  the  serpent  or  the  dragon, 
not  only  as  the  devil  or  Satan,  but  as  behemoth  and 
leviathan,  the  hippopotamus  and  the  alligator,  which 
very  naturally  form  the  crest  of  the  Society  of  Apothe- 
caries; as  Beelzebub  and  Rahab,  and  by  innumer- 
able other  names.  These  various  deities  all  in  time 
became  endowed  with  powers  for  afflicting  the  human 
race,  and  in  their  train  there  arose  that  army  of  false 
prophets  and  false  priests,  proclaiming  and  serving 
them,    and    that    crowd    of    magicians    and    diviners, 


10  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

astrologers  and  necromancers,  sorcerers  and  wizards, 
all  professing  to  be  able  to  control  the  evil  spirits 
and  enlist  them  as  the  servants  of  man. 

ALWAYS    CONSIDERED    ILLICIT 

What  the  methods  employed  by  these  wonder- 
workers exactly  were,  it  is  perhaps  impossible  to  say, 
but  from  the  very  earliest  times  the  best  kings  and 
the  prophets  of  Israel  waged  a  war  of  extermination 
against  them.  That  the  method  of  the  magicians  was 
some  species  of  mental  manipulation  there  is  no  ques- 
tion, and  that  it  was  very  far  from  being  innocuous 
is  quite  positive.  The  magicians  of  Egypt,  who 
represented  a  sort  of  sacred  college,  were  no  mere 
tricksters.  The  necromancers  who,  like  the  witch  of 
Endor,  called  up  the  dead,  produced  some  mental 
condition  capable  of  receiving  the  desired  impression. 
One  thing  is  certain,  that  the  purer  the  monotheism 
of  Israel  became,  the  more  illicit  and  nefarious  the 
various  arts  of  the  diviners  were  recognized  to  be. 

The  captivity  brought  the  Israelites  more  than 
ever  in  contact  with  the  magicians  of  Babylon,  but 
though,  after  the  return  to  Jerusalem,  the  influences 
at  work  were  rather  those  of  Egypt,  the  method  of 
exorcism,  extensively  in  use  in  Babylon,  was  imported 
to  Palestine,  where,  during  the  first  century  of  the 
Christian  era,  it  became  an  almost  regular  practice. 
There  was  nothing  more  material  about  the  methods 
of  the  exorcists  than  about  those  of  the  other  occult 
workers.  They  worked  by  meaijs  of  incantations, 
what  we  should  call  formulas  today,  of  which  Jose- 


VERSUS   MENTAL   SUGGESTION  11 

phus   gives   us   a   specimen,   which   he   attributes   to 
Solomon. 

Like  all  other  occult  workers,  they  appeared  to 
have  called  on  what  sometimes  were  regarded  as 
powers  of  light,  and  sometimes  powers  of  darkness, 
and  it  was  this,  coupled  with  the  knowledge  of  the 
perpetual  battle  which  had  been  maintained  for  cen- 
turies against  "other  gods,"  to  which  the  scribes  and 
Pharisees  alluded  when,  to  prejudice  in  the  eyes  of 
"the  common  people,"  the  healing  done  by  Jesus,  they 
declared,  "This  fellow  doth  not  cast  out  devils,  but 
by  Beelzebub  the  prince  of  the  devils." 

THE    DIVINE    ARGUMENT 

The  reply  of  Jesus,  in  the  light  of  the  fact  that 
exorcism  was  no  doubt  practised  quite  commonly  and 
quite  openly,  without  reproof  from  the  hierarchy,  must 
have  been  crushing:  "Every  kingdom  divided  against 
itself  is  brought  to  desolation;  and  every  city  or 
house  divided  against  itself  shall  not  stand:  and  if 
Satan  cast  out  Satan,  he  is  divided  against  himself; 
how  shall  then  his  kingdom  stand  ?  And  if  I  by  Beel- 
zebub cast  out  devils,  by  whom  do  your  children  cast 
them  out?  therefore  they  shall  be  your  judges.  But 
if  I  cast  out  devils  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  then  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  come  unto  you." 

In  these  words  Jesus,  in  the  clearest  possible  man- 
ner, drew  the  line,  once  and  for  all,  between  Christian 
healing  and  healing  by  occultism  or  mental  suggestion 
of  any  description.  The  Pharisees,  perfectly  con- 
scious that  the  exorcists  had  been  professing  to  cast 


12  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

out  devils  by  appealing  to  all  sorts  of  deities,  were 
silenced. 

The  reply  of  Jesus  went,  however,  much  deeper 
than  this,  and  dealt,  in  a  sentence,  with  the  claim  of 
mortal  mind  to  heal  the  inharmonies  of  its  own  crea- 
tion. It  must  be  remembered  that  divine  healing  is 
not  confined  to  physical  diseases.  It  covers  the  whole 
gamut  of  material  inharmony,  whether  of  sickness  or 
disease,  of  pain  or  accident,  of  poverty  or  sorrow,  of 
sensuality  or  sin.  Jesus  said  to  the  paralytic  man, 
"Whether  is  eaeier,  to  say.  Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee; 
or  to  say.  Arise,  and  walk.^" 

Mrs.  Eddy  puts  the  same  truth  in  different  words 
on  page  210  of  Science  and  Health,  when  she  says: 
"Jesus  healed  sickness  and  sin  by  one  and  the  same 
metaphysical  process."  Sin,  again,  covers  something 
far  larger  than  the  infringement  of  a  definite  moral 
code.  If  this  were  not  so,  sin  would  become  a  geo- 
graphical and  temporal  expression.  Jesus  showed 
this  plainly,  in  the  course  of  the  sermon  on  the  mount, 
when,  after  enumerating  the  things  which  men  should 
and  should  not  do,  he  wound  up  with  the  famous 
phrase,  "Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even  as  your  Father 
which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect." 

SIN     OF     OMISSION 

There  is,  of  course,  the  sin  of  commission,  which 
lies  in  the  infringement  of  an  accepted  moral  code, 
but  there  is  no  less  the  sin  of  omission,  which  consists 
in  believing  in  anything  apart  from  God;  the  one 
might  be  expressed  in  the  conscious  breaking  of  the 


VERSUS    MENTAL   SUGGESTION  18 

commandments,  the  other,  in  the  failure  to  live  in 
consonance  with  the  beatitudes. 

Christian  healing,  then,  is  the  attempt  to  destroy 
in  the  human  consciousness  the  belief  that  there  is 
life,  power,  substance,  or  intelligence  apart  from  God, 
and  if  this  is  successfully  accomplished,  all  the  beliefs 
of  materiality  vanish  like  the  unrealities  they  are. 
"Mortal  mind,"  Mrs.  Eddy  writes,  on  page  178  of 
Science  and  Health,  "acting  from  the  basis  of  sensa- 
tion in  matter,  is  animal  magnetism ;  but  this  so-called 
mind,  from  which  comes  all  evil,  contradicts  itself, 
and  must  finally  yield  to  the  eternal  Truth,  or  the 
divine  Mind,  expressed  in  Science." 

All  occult  working  is  a  species  of  mental  manipu- 
lation. The  witch  of  Endor  did  not  reincarnate 
Samuel,  but  she  did  superinduce  in  Saul  the  belief 
that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  the  prophet.  The 
vagabond  Jews,  the  exorcists  of  Ephesus,  certainly 
produced  on  the  minds  of  those  over  whom  they  exer- 
cised their  incantations  some  impression  which  ex- 
pressed itself  in  a  physical  result.  The  whole  process 
was  one  of  mental  suggestion,  and  that  process, 
whether  under  the  name  of  necromancy  or  exorcism, 
of  astrology  or  divination,  of  enchantment  or  witch- 
craft, of  mesmerism  or  hypnotism,  is  simply  the  result 
of  that  conscious  or  unconscious  belief  in  animal 
magnetism  which  Mrs.  Eddy  has  explained,  on  page 
103  of  Science  and  Health,  in  saying:  "As  named  in 
Christian  Science,  animal  magnetism  or  hypnotism  is 
the  specific  term  for  error,  or  mortal  mind.  It  is  the 
false  belief  that  mind  is  in  matter,  and  is  both  evil 


14  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

and  good;   that  evil  is  as  real  as  good  and  more  pow- 
erful.    This  belief  has  not  one  quality  of  Truth." 

THE   HOUSE   DIVIDED 

Christian  Science  is  founded  entirely  on  the  Bible, 
and  anybody  who  will  compare  the  words  of  Jesus 
with  the  two  extracts  just  quoted  from  Science  and 
Health  will  see  how  completely  they  agree.  Mortal 
mind,  Mrs.  Eddy  says,  contradicts  itself,  and  this  is 
exactly  what  Jesus  explained  by  describing  it  as  a 
house  divided  against  itself.  Again,  mortal  mind,  as 
she  says,  is  the  belief  that  mind  is  in  matter  and  is 
both  good  and  evil.  It  was  this  very  belief  in  the 
power  of  good  and  evil  which  Jesus  exposed  as  a 
house  divided  against  a  house,  and  it  was  this  very 
belief  in  the  possibility  of  effecting  healing  through 
the  action  of  the  human  mind,  which  is  itself  fully 
imbued  with  the  belief  in  good  and  evil,  which  he 
repudiated  in  claiming  that  true  healing  was  wrought 
by  the  Spirit  of  God. 

The  claim  of  the  human  mind  that  it  is  possible 
to  do  good  through  suggestion  is  absolutely  insepa- 
rable from  the  claim  that  it  is  possible  to  do  evil.  The 
statement  is  beginning  to  be  circulated  that  hypnotic 
suggestion  is  a  healing  method  through  the  operation 
of  which  no  harm  can  come.  There  is,  however,  no 
fragment  of  justification  for  this,  and  the  opposite  of 
this  has  been  brought  out  in  the  clearest  manner  in  the 
courts  of  Europe  within  the  last  few  years. 

It  is  urged  sometimes  in  defense  of  the  use  of 
suggestion    that    suggestions    of    evil    can    only    be 


VERSUS   MENTAL   SUGGESTION  15 

implanted  in  a  mind  with  a  natural  tendency  in  the 
direction  of  the  suggestion  made.  This  is  in  itself  a 
sufficiently  damning  excuse,  as  it  would  place  every- 
body under  a  certain  moral  level  at  the  mercy  of  the 
hypnotist. 

BELIEF    IN    EVIL 

The  fact  is  that  no  one  has  ever  yet  had  the  hardi- 
hood to  deny  that  the  human  mind  is  largely  permeated 
with  a  belief  in  the  power  and  reality  of  evil.  Conse- 
quently, when  the  theory  of  mental  manipulation  is 
imparted  to  this  mind,  it  is  let  loose  to  thrust  out  sug- 
gestions of  good  or  evil  in  every  direction.  This  is 
precisely  the  mental  condition  typified  by  Jesus  as  a 
house  divided  against  a  house,  and,  as  he  said,  such 
a  house  cannot  stand. 

The  writer  of  the  Jehovistic  document  of  the  book 
of  Genesis  put  the  same  statement  equally  forcibly  in 
the  allegory  of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil,  the  eating  of  which  he  declared  would  produce 
death.  This  statement  has  been  constantly  quoted 
without  those  who  have  quoted  it  perceiving  what  it 
fully  implies.  Death,  Paul  wrote  to  the  Romans, 
entered  the  world  through  sin.  It  is  therefore  obvious 
that  a  belief  in  good  and  evil  constituted  what  in 
Paul's  opinion  was  sin,  and  it  is  therefore  impossible 
to  maintain,  from  a  Christian  point  of  view,  that 
healing  can  proceed  from  a  mind  conscious  of  good 
and  evil.  What  would  proceed  from  such  a  source  is, 
as  the  Bible  clearly  states,  death,  and  so,  necessarily, 
sickness  and  inharmony  of  every  description.     Now 


16  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

Jesus  said  that  it  was  impossible  to  obtain  figs  from 
thorns,  or  grapes  from  a  bramble  bush.  It  is,  there- 
fore, as  evident  as  anything  can  be  that  a  mind 
believing  in  the  reality  of  both  good  and  evil,  and  so 
predisposed  to  death,  is  incapable  of  healing  sickness. 

THE   POWER  THAT    HEALS 

What  does  heal  sickness  Jesus  put  quite  clearly  in 
the  very  answer  in  which  he  disposed  of  the  human 
mind  as  a  healing  agency. '  "If,"  he  said,  "I  cast  out 
devils  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  then  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  come  unto  you."  The  kingdom  of  God  never  came 
upon  any  man  by  suggestion  from  a  mind  torn  by 
human  passions  and  believing  now  in  good  and  now  in 
evil.  The  kingdom  of  God  comes  to  man  exactly  in 
the  proportion  in  which  he  acquires  the  Mind  which 
was  in  Christ  Jesus,  for  the  possession  of  the  Mind 
of  Christ  frees  man  from  a  belief  in  the  lie  of 
evil. 

In  that  terrific  mental  battle  with  the  Jews,  recorded 
in  the  eighth  chapter  of  John,  which  ended  in  the 
attempt  to  stone  him,  Jesus  referred  once  more  to  the 
belief  in  evil  producing  death,  in  a  way  that  has  gen- 
erally escaped  attention.  "Ye  are  of  your  father  the 
devil,"  he  said,  "and  the  lusts  of  your  father  ye  will 
do.  He  was  a  murderer  from  the  beginning,  and 
abode  not  in  the  truth,  because  there  is  no  truth  in 
him.  When  he  speaketh  a  lie,  he  speaketh  of  his  own : 
for  he  is  a  liar,  and  the  father  of  it."  Speaking  in 
a  manner  which  would  be  quite  intelligible  to  those 


VERSUS    MENTAL   SUGGESTION  17 

he  was  addressing,  he  personified  evil  in  a  way  strange 
and  almost  incomprehensible  to  western  ears.  The 
Hebrew,  however,  who,  it  has  been  truly  said,  never 
opened  his  mouth  without  emitting  a  metaphor,  took 
the  substantive  Satan,  or  adversary,  and  personified 
it  as  a  synonym  for  evil,  just  as  he  took  the  adjective 
belial,  worthless,  and  used  it  in  the  same  way.  Evil, 
Jesus  said,  was  a  murderer  from  the  beginning,  from 
the  moment  when  the  eating  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree 
of  th6  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  first  brought  death 
into  the  world.  Yet,  he  added,  the  whole  thing  is  a 
lie,  which  abode  not  in  the  truth,  because  there  is  no 
truth  in  it.  Take  away  the  imagery  of  the  east,  re- 
duce the  phrase  to  the  matter-of-fact  English  of  the 
twentieth  century,  and  what  does  it  amount  to  but 
this:  in  reality  the  lie  never  existed,  because  there  is 
no  reality  in  it.  This  is  the  truth,  and  the  truth  in 
exposing  the  lie  strips  it  of  its  claim  to  reality  and 
power.  "Ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall 
make  you  free." 

ABSOLUTE    AND   RELATIVE 

A  great  thinker  of  the  last  century,  equally  famous 
as  a  churchman  and  a  scholar,  has  shown  how  the 
atpostle  John,  by  a  particular  use  of  the  definite  article, 
has  separated  the  absolute  from  the  relative  through- 
out the  fourth  gospel.  In  the  sentence  just  quoted 
the  definite  article  is  emphatically  used,  so  that  it  is 
the  knowledge,  not  of  any  mere  relative  sense  of  truth, 
but  of  absolute  Truth,  which   is  to   free  the  world/ 


18  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

Now,  a  knowledge  of  absolute  Truth  is  a  knowledge 
of  God,  and  thus,  in  the  epistles,  we  find  an  expres- 
sion translated  knowledge  of  God,  but  which  should, 
of  course,  be  translated  full,  exact,  that  is  absolute,  or 
scientific,  knowledge  of  God.  This  truth,  says  Dr. 
Westcott,  which  is  to  make  men  free,  is  expressed  in 
"perfect  conformity  to  the  absolute — to  that  which  is. 
Intellectually  this  conformity  is  knowledge  of  the 
truth:  morally,  obedience  to  the  divine  law." 

The  absolute,  howbeit,  is  spiritual,  and  spiritual 
things  can  be  only  spiritually  discerned.  It  follows, 
consequently,  that  a  knowledge  of  absolute  Truth 
can  be  gained  only  through  spiritual  perception,  and 
never  through  the  human  intellect,  confined,  by  the 
very  reason  of  its  belief  in  good  and  evil,  to  a  belief 
in  the  relative.  A  knowledge  of  the  absolute  sweeps 
away  any  recognition  of  duality,  and  leaves  good 
enthroned  as  omnipotence, — "Hear,  O  Israel:  The 
Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord." 

Just,  however,  as  Truth  is  necessarily  absolute,  so 
law  is  necessarily  absolute.  Law  which  admits  good 
and  evil  to  equal  or  even  unequal  copartnership  im- 
plies either  that  the  tree  which  bears  the  fruit  of 
death,  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  was  planted 
by  the  divine  Mind,  conscious  only  of  infinite  Life, 
Truth,  and  Love,  or  else  a  recognition  of  many  gods. 
The  first  is  a  metaphysical  impossibility.  The  second 
a  metaphysical  absurdity,  which  promotes  animal 
magnetism  in  all  its  phases,  mesmerism,  hypnotism, 
and  mental  suggestion,  to  power,  and  exclaims: 
"These  be  thy  gods,  O  Israel" ! 


VERSUS    MENTAL   SUGGESTION  19 

It  is  common  among  those  matter-of-fact  people 
who  believe  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  common 
sense  to  be  science,  to  sneer  at  metaphysics.  If  they 
would  only  read  a  certain  essay  of  Huxley's  on  this 
subject  they  might  have  an  occasional  qualm.  "By 
way  of  escape/'  he  wrote,  "from  the  metaphysical 
will-o'-the-wisps  generated  in  the  marshes  of  literature 
and  theology,  the  serious  student  is  sometimes  bidden 
to  betake  himself  to  the  solid  ground  of  physical 
science.  But  the  fish  of  immortal  memory,  who  threw 
himself  out  of  the  frying-pan  into  the  fire,  was  not 
more  ill-advised  than  the  man  who  seeks  sanctuary 
from  philosophical  persecution  within  the  walls  of 
the  observatory  or  of  the  laboratory." 

"common  sense"  philosophy 

The  meaning  of  this  is  plain  enough,  and  may  be 
shown  by  two  illustrations  of  Huxley's  own  in  another 
essay.  The  common  sense  philosopher  who  looks  at 
the  sky  is  absolutely  positive  that  the  sun  rises  and 
sets.  So  certain  were  people  of  this  that  in  medieval 
Europe  those  who  dared  to  question  it  were  in  danger 
of  prison  or  death.  Today,  the  person  who  questions 
it  is  in  danger  merely  of  being  thought  a  fool. 

Another  illustration  may  bring  the  matter  down  to 
our  own  times.  The  common  sense  person  is  con- 
vinced that  pain  is  in  a  wound.  If  you  were  to  tell 
him  that  it  was  not  within  "two  feet  of  it,"  he  would 
proceed  to  tell  you  that  his  senses  convinced  him  that 
it  was.  When,  however,  he  turns  to  the  laboratory, 
the  scientist  answers  by  telling  him  that  pain  "is  a 


20  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

state  of  consciousness."  The  moral  is  obvious.  The 
teaching  in  Christian  Science  of  the  unreality  of  mat- 
ter is  not  a  bit  more  ridiculous  to  the  common  sense 
philosopher  of  today  than  the  statement  that  the  sun 
was  stationary  was  ridiculous  to  the  medieval  inquis- 
itor; while  the  statement  that  pain  is  mental,  however 
ridiculous  it  may  be  to  the  common  sense  philosopher, 
is  not  ridiculous  to  the  laboratory.  "Of  all  the  dan- 
gerous mental  habits/'  to  complete  Huxley's  summing 
up,  "that  which  schoolboys  call  'cocksureness'  is 
probably  the  most  perilous ;  and  the  inestimable  value 
of  metaphysical  discipline  is  that  it  furnishes  an  ejffec- 
tual  counterpoise  to  this  evil  proclivity." 

The  great  teachers  of  idealism  in  natural  science 
have  never  pretended  that,  because  matter  was  a  mere 
phenomenon,  and  so  absolutely  unreal,  it  was  not  rela- 
tively a  fact  to  the  human  consciousness.  They  have 
never  doubted,  any  more  than  that  sardonic  material- 
istic Pilate,  that  life  could  be  destroyed.  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  whom  orthodox  Christianity  has  proclaimed 
God,  and  sympathetic  agnosticism  as  the  greatest  of 
ethical  teachers,  was  in  reality,  as  Mrs.  Eddy  has 
pointed  out,  on  page  313  of  Science  and  Health,  "the 
most  scientific  man  that  ever  trod  the  globe."  He 
knew  that  Life  is  God,  and  therefore  spiritual  and 
indestructible.  The  necromancers,  speaking  in  the 
supposed  shrill  voices  of  Sheol,  in  what  Virgil  calls  a 
ghost  of  a  voice,  called  up  shades  which  they  claimed 
to  be  the  dead;  Christ  Jesus,  standing  in  the  mouth 
of  the  tomb  in  Bethany,  cried  in  a  loud  voice,  "Lazarus, 
come  forth."     He  had  won,  by  complete  obedience  to 


VERSUS    MENTAL    SUGGESTION  21 

divine  law,  the  understanding  of  absolute  Truth,  and 
was  far  better  able  to  demonstrate  it  than  the  natural 
scientist  of  today  is  able  to  demonstrate  his  knowledge 
of  the  relative  truth  of  chemistry. 

ANIMAL   MAGNETISM 

The  priests  of  Asklepios  muttered  their  incanta- 
tions, and  encouraged  their  patients  by  a  view  of  the 
snakes  which  represented  the  deity.  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth healed  every  manner  of  sickness  with  a  word, 
and  had  no  need  of  the  formula  of  the  exorcists.  Now, 
the  necromancers  no  more  believed  that  they  raised 
the  dead  with  their  incantations,  than  the  priests  of 
Asklepios  imagined  that  the  harmless,  hooded  snakes 
of  the  temples  healed  the  sick.  Both  of  them  knew 
perfectly  well  that  they  used  these  means  to  suggest 
to  their  patients  what  they  desired. 

Because,  after  a  lapse  of  centuries,  occultism  has 
found  new  names  and  new  methods,  it  is  not  any  the 
less  the  expression  of  animal  magnetism.  The  knowl- 
edge of  the  Christ,  of  Truth,  which  constituted  the 
Mind  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus,  healed  the  sick 
scientifically  by  destroying  the  lie  which  produced  the 
belief  of  sickness.  But  animal  magnetism,  as  Mrs. 
Eddy  writes  on  page  102  of  Science  and  Health,  "has 
no  scientific  foundation,  for  God  governs  all  that  is 
real,  harmonious,  and  eternal,  and  His  power  is 
neither  animal  nor  human.  Its  basis  being  a  belief 
and  this  belief  animal,  in  Science  animal  magnetism, 
mesmerism,  or  hypnotism  is  a  mere  negation,  possess- 
ing neither  intelligence,  power,  nor  reality,  and  in 


22  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

sense  it  is  an  unreal  concept  of  the  so-called  mortal 
mind." 

It  is  perfectly  clear  from  all  this  that  Jesus  drew 
a  distinct  line  between  the  spiritual  fact  expressed  in 
divine  law  and  the  material  fact  expressed  in  physical 
law.  The  first  is  absolute,  the  second  relative;  the 
first  eternal_,  the  second  temporal.  He  never  said  that 
sin,  disease,  and  death  did  not  seem  desperately  real 
to  the  human  consciousness;  he  admitted  that  they 
were  so  relatively  true  as  to  need  to  be  shown  to  be 
untrue,  and  he  explained  that  this  demonstration  could 
be  made  only  through  the  understanding  of  absolute 
Truth.  In  the  same  way  he  did  not  say  that  the 
occult  workers  did  not  produce  an  effect  so  far  as  the 
human  senses  were  concerned,  but  he  showed  in  the 
raising  of  Lazarus,  and  in  the  casting  out  of  devils, 
and  healing  the  sick,  the  difference  between  mental 
suggestion  and  the  operation  of  divine  law. 

OCCULTISM    AND    SPIRITUALITY 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  whether  the  ex- 
ponents of  suggestion  are  prepared  to  consign  the 
Bible  to  the  scrap-heap  of  Haggardic  literature,  and 
to  maintain  that  the  occultism  and  esoteric  magic  of 
the  east  is  an  old  wife's  tale,  to  be  dismissed  with  the 
airy  humor  with  which  Lord  Byron  disposed  of  the 
Berkeley  ballads.  Because,  if  not,  if  these  things 
had  a  foundation  in  belief,  if  we  have  their  descend- 
ants in  the  mesmerism,  hypnotism,  and  mental  sug- 
gestion of  today,  is  Christian  Science,  which,  as  its 
discoverer  and  Founder,  Mrs.  Eddy,  has  told  us,  is 


VERSUS    MENTAL   SUGGESTION  28 

built  up  on  the  Bible,  wrong  for  drawing  the  distinc- 
tion Jesus  drew  between  occultism  and  spiritual  heal- 
ing, and  showing  the  world  how  to  protect  itself 
against  the  one  by  relying  on  the  other? 

To  describe  Christian  Science  as  the  apotheosis  of 
fear,  for  teaching  the  world  how  to  protect  itself 
against  animal  magnetism,  is  just  about  as  sensible  as 
to  accuse  Paul  of  being  a  coward  for  advising  Chris- 
tians to  protect  themselves  with  the  whole  armor  of 
God.  Fear,  as  ordinarily  defined,  is  the  mental  effect 
produced  on  people  by  the  belief  of  an  inability  to 
defend  themselves  against  a  power  stronger  than  them- 
selves. Relatively  speaking,  this  is  accurate  enough, 
but,  speaking  absolutely  and  scientifically,  fear  is  the 
belief  that  man  is  material  and  not  spiritual,  for  if  he 
were  known  to  be  spiritual  there  would  be  nothing  to 
fear  for  him. 

WHAT     LOVE     IS 

What  love  is,  from  a  relative  human  standpoint,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  say.  It  would  take  too  long  to 
attempt  to  reconcile  the  various  definitions,  but,  scien- 
tifically, love  is  either  a  synonym  for  God,  or  an 
attribute  of  God,  and  it  is  so  used  in  an  absolute 
sense  in  the  Bible.  Relatively  speaking,  the  more 
human  beings  love  one  another,  the  greater  is  their 
fear  when  danger  threatens  the  object  of  their  love, 
but  in  the  exact  proportion  in  which  their  love  is  made 
perfect,  in  which,  that  is  to  say,  it  realizes  that  man 
is  spiritual  and  not  material,  and  is  consequently  not 


24  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

under  any  relative  human  law,  the  fear  vanishes  in 
the  perception  of  divine  protection.  Thus,  "perfect 
love  casteth  out  fear." 

Animal  magnetism  is  essentially  the  belief  that  man 
is  material;  how  then  Christian  Science,  which  teaches 
the  exact  reverse,  can  produce  fear,  it  is  quite  impos- 
sible to  say.  The  fact,  of  course,  is  precisely  the 
other  way.  Everywhere  the  critics  of  Christian  Sci- 
ence are  bearing  witness  to  the  joy  and  peace  notice- 
able in  the  lives  of  Christian  Scientists. 

Let  us  take  two  instances  only,  and  these  from  the 
ranks  of  the  two  professions,  in  the  very  nature  of 
things  most  inimical  to  Christian  Science.  The  Arch- 
bishop of  York,  speaking,  not  long  ago,  at  the  York 
Diocesan  Conference,  asked  how  they  were  to  account 
for  the  lives  Christian  Scientists  lived.  "He  could 
only  say  that  he  had  rarely  met  with  such  capacity 
to  enter  some  of  the  deeper  aspects  of  truth,  and  he 
had  seen  the  lives  of  Christian  Scientists,  tranquil, 
bright,  cheerful."  "They  [his  own  church]  ought," 
he  continued,  "to  have  had  all  along  the  elixir  of  life 
to  give  to  their  people.  Had  they  lost  it?  Why  was 
it  that  they  so  seldom  met  in  the  ranks  of  their  own 
people  any  one  of  whom  a  visitor  from  Mars  would 
say,  'What  is  the  secret  of  that  man's  or  that  woman's 
life.^'  that  radiant  sense  of  the  supernatural,  that 
brightness  and  reality  of  spirit.^" 

The  other  profession  is  of  course  that  of  medicine; 
and  in  a  letter,  not  very  long  ago,  to  the  Daily  Mail, 
Dr.  John  Shaw,  of  Harley  street,  a  man  with  a  great 
London  practice,  wrote,  "I  am  not  a  Christian  Scien- 


VERSUS    MENTAL    SUGGESTION  23 

tist,  but  I  believe  in  what  I  should  regard  as  the 
essential  tenet  of  their  creed,  and  which  I  might  sum 
up  in  the  words,  'The  Lord's  hand  is  not  shortened, 
that  it  cannot  save.'  " 

TWO    TESTIMONIES 

Here,  then,  are  two  men,  distinguished  in  their 
professions,  speaking  from  personal  knowledge  and 
observation,  dwelling  on  the  extraordinary  absence 
of  fear  in  the  lives  of  Christian  Scientists,  and 
on  the  tranquillity  and  radiancy  which  pervade 
them. 

The  archbishop  asks.  What  is  the  secret  of  it  all.'* 
Well,  it  is  this — that  Christian  Scientists  have  learned 
that  spiritual  things  are  not  supernatural,  as  he  imag- 
ines, but  divinely  natural,  and,  in  consequence,  they 
do  not  fall  into  the  mistake  of  crying,  "Lo  here!  or, 
lo  there!" — "for,  behold,  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
within  you."  The  fact  is,  that  Mrs.  Eddy  has  taught 
Christian  Scientists  how  to  master  and  control  the 
animal  propensities  which  make  for  fear,  anxiety,  and 
unrest  in  the  human  consciousness.  These  propensi- 
ties John  described  as  "the  lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the 
lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life,"  and  it  is 
through  the  supposititious  existence  of  these  things 
that  conscious  and  unconscious  suggestion  reaches  the 
human  mind.  It  was  because  he  possessed  the  Mind 
of  Christ,  that  Jesus  was  able  to  say,  "The  prince  of 
this  world  cometh,  and  hath  nothing  in  me."  "Evil 
thoughts,  lusts,  and  malicious  purposes  cannot  go 
forth,  like  wandering  pollen,"  Mrs.  Eddy  writes,  on 


26  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

page  234  of  Science  and  Health,  "from  one  human 
mind  to  another,  finding  unsuspected  lodgment,  if 
virtue  and  truth  build  a  strong  defence." 

BELIEF    IN    WITCHCRAFT 

The  wonder-workers  of  the  east,  before  the  Chris- 
tian era,  knew  something — we  shall,  perhaps,  never 
know  exactly  how  much — of  mental  suggestion,  and 
that  knowledge  passed,  to  some  extent,  into  Europe, 
through  the  Roman  empire,  in  the  days  of  the  astrol- 
ogers and  wizards,  and  found  at  lasl  concrete  expres- 
sion in  the  belief  of  witchcraft.  Because,  however, 
many  innocent  and  harmless  creatures  were  tortured 
as  witches,  this  does  not  prove  that  animal  magnetism, 
in  the  form  of  witchcraft,  did  not  exist,  though  these 
sufferers  may  have  known  nothing  of  it.  A  recent 
critic  has  reproduced  two  illustrations,  one  of  "a 
lemon  pierced  with  nails;  a  Neapolitan  method  of 
invoking  evil  influences,"  and  the  other,  "a  pig's  heart 
transfixed  with  pins  and  thorns — an  English  rustic's 
malicious  charm."  He  seems  to  think  that  these  two 
instances  of  gross  superstition  advance  his  case  in 
proving  a  belief  in  malicious  animal  magnetism  to  be 
the  nightmare  of  ignorance.  He  does  not  seem  to 
know  that  they  are  but  links  in  a  chain  of  mental 
suggestion,  one  end  of  which  is  lost  in  the  twilight 
of  history  in  the  east,  while  the  other  is  anchored  in 
London,  New  York,  and  Rome,  and  the  other  great 
cities  of  today. 

The  magicians  of  the  east  made  their  figures  of 
clay  to  represent  their  victims,  just  like  the  Neapoli- 


VERSUS    MENTAL   SUGGESTION  27 

tan  peasant  or  the  English  rustic,  and  studded  them 
with  nails,  not  because  they  imagined  that  that  mere 
act  was  going  to  have  any  effect,  but  as  a  means  of 
fixing  in  their  thought  the  fears  and  sensations  they 
wished  to  impart  mentally.  This  was  in  the  days 
before  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  had  started  his  theory  of 
animal  attraction,  or  Paracelsus  that  of  the  magnetic 
system,  a  doctrine  which  in  due  time  Goelenius  de- 
scribed as  witchcraft.  Now,  it  does  not  matter  an 
atom  whether  Goelenius  was  right  or  wrong.  Here 
we  have  traveling  down  .the  centuries  the  belief  in 
animal  magnetism,  called  now  by  this  name,  and  now 
by  that,  carrying  with  it  a  load  of  fear  and  detestation, 
venting  itself,  as  such  things  always  do,  in  cruelty 
and  hatred,  and  creating  a  snowball  of  mental  belief 
in  the  power  of  evil. 

ABOUT     INTELLECTUALITY 

It  has  been  said  that  as  knowledge  grew,  supersti- 
tion vanished.  The  writer  of  the  Book  of  Ecclesi- 
astes  puts  matters  a  little  differently:  "Then  said  I, 
Wisdom  is  better  than  strength:  nevertheless  the  poor 
man's  wisdom  is  despised,  and  his  words  are  not 
heard,"  a  saying  approximating  to  that  in  Proverbs, 
"The  knowledge  of  the  holy  is  understanding." 
Here,  then,  are  the  writers  of  two  of  the  great  wisdom 
books  of  the  Bible,  pointing  out  that  the  knowledge 
which  destroys  ignorance  is  not  expressed  in  intel- 
lectual pride,  but  in  a  knowledge  of  the  spiritual,  that 
very  scientific  knowledge  of  God,  spoken  .of  in  the 
epistles.      A   great   Chinese   philosopher,   writing   six 


28  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  declared  that  if 
there  was  no  evil  in  the  human  consciousness,  wisdom 
would  be  at  least  innocuous,  but  that  as  there  was 
more  evil  than  good,  it  merely  converted  the  ignorant 
knave  into  the  dangerous  knave.  "Reason,"  Mrs.  Eddy 
writes,  on  page  327  of  Science  and  Health,  "is  the 
most  active  human  faculty.  Let  that  inform  the 
sentiments  and  awaken  the  man's  dormant  sense  of 
moral  obligation,  and  by  degrees  he  will  learn  the 
nothingness  of  the  pleasures  of  human  sense  and  the 
grandeur  and  bliss  of  a  spiritual  sense,  which  silences 
the  material  or  corporeal.'* 

Now,  as  the  ignorant  malice  of  the  rustic,  sticking 
thorns  in  his  pig's  heart,  gave  place  little  by  little  to 
the  cultivated  human  knowledge  of  the  mesmerist  or 
the  hypnotist,  the  belief  of  power  in  evil  seemed  to 
grow  in  intensity,  "The  mild  forms  of  animal  magnet- 
ism," Mrs.  Eddy  writes,  on  page  102  of  Science  and 
Health  "are  disappearing,  and  its  aggressive  features 
are  coming  to  the  front.  The  looms  of  crime,  hidden  in 
the  dark  recesses  of  mortal  thought,  are  every  hour 
weaving  webs  more  complicated  and  subtle."  To 
pretend  that  the  looms  of  crime  are  not  perpetually 
weaving  evil  is  to  shut  your  eyes  to  the  relative  fact 
of  the  existence  of  evil  as  a  belief  in  the  human  mind ; 
but,  in  proportion  as  the  teaching  of  Christian  Science 
is  assimilated,  the  student  learns  to  watch,  less  with 
consternation  and  more  with  amusement,  the  labors 
of  the  weavers,  spinning  the  thread  which,  like  the 
cloth  in  the  famous  fairy-tale  of  "The  King's  New 
Clothes,"  has  no  existence.     The  only  true  thing  that 


VERSUS   MENTAL   SUGGESTION  29 

can  be  said  about  evil  is  that  it  is  a  lie,  and  the  only 
power  a  lie  can  ever  even  seem  to  simulate  is  the 
temporary  sense  of  power  which  a  lie  appears  to 
exert  so  long  as  it  is  believed  in.  "Ye  shall  know 
the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free." 

METHODS    OF    HEALING 

That  the  employer  of  mental  suggestion,  with  his 
focus  narrowed  to  the  range  of  human  intelligence, 
should  find  it  impossible  to  detach  science  from  an 
examination  of  secondary  causes  or  physical  facts, 
and  to  extend  it  to  an  understanding  of  primary 
causes  or  spiritual  facts,  is  not  remarkable.  The 
remarkable  thing  is  that  people  who  are  not  held 
wtthin  the  immediate  thrall  of  a  belief  in  mental 
suggestion  should  be  willing  to  conclude  that  any  one 
knows  more  of  Christian  Science  than  a  Christian 
Scientist  does. 

The  complete  failure  of  the  employer  of  mental 
suggestion  to  get  beyond  his  own  view  of  mental 
practice  is  made  manifest  the  moment  he  attempts  to 
deal  critically  with  Christian  Science.  To  argue,  for 
instance,  that  a  Christian  Science  practitioner  treats 
a  patient  by  ignoring  symptoms,  while  an  ordinary 
medical  practitioner  attacks  the  cause,  is  not  merely 
absurd,  it  is  a  practical  reversal  of  the  position.  To 
the  Christian  Scientist,  as  well  as  to  the  doctor,  a 
symptom  is  an  indication  of  a  cause.  To  the  doctor, 
believing  disease  to  be  purely  material,  the  cause  is 
always  a  material  one,  and  the  patient  is  dealt  with 
as  if  he  represented  so  much  matter.     To  the  Chris- 


30  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

tian  Scientist  the  cause  is  always  a  mental  one,  even 
though  it  is  expressed  physically,  and  the  treatment 
is  therefore  directed  to  eradicating  the  mental  cause. 
It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  the  medical  practitioner 
is  a  materialist,  while  the  Christian  Scientist  is  an 
idealist,  for,  speaking  roughly,  the  difference  between 
idealism  and  materialism  consists  of  this — that  the 
materialist  conceives  of  mind  as  contained  in  matter, 
whereas  the  idealist  conceives  of  matter  as  contained 
in  mortal  mind. 

MEANING    OF    SYMPTOMS 

Now,  the  symptoms  of  consumption  may  originate 
in  a  variety  of  causes.  To  the  doctor  those  causes 
are  physical.  He  proceeds  to  attack  the  physical 
cause,  and,  as  far  as  this  goes,  he  is  correct.  The 
Christian  Scientist  goes  deeper  than  this;  he  goes  to 
the  mental  cause  in  which  all  apparently  material 
causation  has  its  origin.  The  consequence  is,  that 
instead  of  confining  himself  to  the  physical  cause,  as 
the  doctor  does,  and  trying  to  destroy  that,  he  attacks 
the  mental  cause  which  lies  behind  the  apparent  phys- 
ical cause,  with  the  result  that,  if  he  is  successful,  the 
disease  is  destroyed  for  ever,  and  no  relapse  is 
possible. 

For  instance,  a  doctor  treating  a  case  of  consump- 
tion never  gives  credit  for  the  fact  that  the  physical 
conditions  producing  the  symptoms  originate  in  mind. 
The  consequence  is  that,  even  if  he  succeeds  in  tem- 
porarily overcoming  one  physical  condition,  he  leaves 
another  physical  condition  capable  of,  at  any  moment, 


VERSUS    MENTAL   SUGGESTION  31 

again  producing  consumptive  symptoms.  The  Chris- 
tian Scientist,  on  the  other  hand,  regarding  the  phys- 
ical cause  of  the  disease  as  merely  a  mental  result, 
attacks  the  mental  cause,  which  may  be  a  dozen  differ- 
ent things  of  which  the  doctor  has  never  dreamed,  and 
if  this  is  destroyed  it  is  absolutely  mentally  oblit- 
erated, and  is  entirely  incapable  of  reasserting 
itself. 

The  employer  of  mental  suggestion  who  attempts  to 
treat  a  case  of  disease  can  succeed  only  in  inducing 
the  patient  to  believe  that  he  has  not  got  this  disease. 
This  simply  means  that  as  long  as  the  manipulation  of 
the  patient's  mind  continues  the  operation  of  the 
mental  causes  producing  the  disease  is  held  back. 
The  moment,  however,  that  the  treatment  ceases  the 
mind  reverts  to  its  former  attitude,  and  the  symptoms, 
in  an  aggravated  form,  return.  It  is  like  putting  a 
weight  on  a  turned-back  spring:  the  moment  the 
weight  is  removed  the  spring  swings  back  to  its  former 
position. 

METHODS    NOT    AKIN 

Not  long  ago,  a  gentleman  who  had  practised  heal- 
ing by  mental  suggestion  and  who  was  well  known  as 
a  mental  healer  of  this  description,  called  on  me.  He 
informed  me  that  he  had  employed  this  practice  for 
between  three  and  four  years,  with  the  result  that 
he  had  noticed  that  practically  every  nominal  case  of 
healing  was  followed  by  an  eventual  relapse.  He  also 
informed  me  that,  while  practising  mental  suggestion. 


82  CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE    HEALING 

he  had  watched  many  cases  of  Christian  Science  heal- 
ing, and  observed  that  the  relapses  were  practically 
non-existent.  The  results  so  impressed  him  that  he 
came  to  ask  for  an  explanation  of  the  difference  be- 
tween the  two  systems.  When  the  explanation  was 
given  to  him,  he  saw  with  perfect  clearness  the  differ- 
ence between  the  two,  and  admitted,  not  only  that 
there  was  no  connection,  but  that  the  methods  em- 
ployed were  as  far  apart  as  the  poles.  One  inevitable 
result  of  mental  suggestion  is  to  weaken  the  normal 
will-power  of  the  patient,  with  the  result  that,  if  it  is 
employed  in  connection  with  ordinary  medical  treat- 
ment, the  vital  force  of  the  patient  is  so  weakened 
that  he  is  apt  to  sink  under  the  medical  or  surgical 
treatment. 

The  difference  between  faith-healing  and  Christian 
Science  is  apparent  from  this,  and  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  use  of  drugs  is  absolutely  as  much  faith-healing 
as  an  appeal  to  an  anthropomorphic  deity.  The  witch 
doctor  who  succeeds  in  making  a  patient  believe  that 
by  the  propitiation  of  some  deity  his  sickness  can  be 
removed,  plays  no  more  on  the  patient's  faith  than 
does  the  medical  doctor  who  persuades  a  patient  that 
certain  physical  conditions  can  be  removed  by  a  drug. 
The  cause  of  disease  being  mental,  what  happens  in 
each  case  is  that  the  belief  in  the  vagaries  of  the  witch 
doctor,  or  the  belief  in  the  drug,  produces  the  same 
effect. 

"absent"  treatment 

The  difference  between  Christian  Science  practice 
and  every  phase  of  mental  suggestion  is  manifest  in 


VERSUS    MENTAL   SUGGESTION  33 

the  fact  that  the  Christian  Scientist  does  not  do  what 
is  termed,  "place  himself  en  rapport"  with  the  patient. 
To  say  that  a  Christian  Scientist  treats  a  patient  at 
a  specific  time  by  arrangement,  during  which  time 
the  patient  places  himself  mentally  at  the  disposal  of 
the  Christian  Science  practitioner,  is  simply  to  state 
something  which  every  Christian  Scientist  knows  to 
be  ridiculous. 

Perhaps  the  most  perfect  disproof  of  this  exists  in 
what  is  known  as  absent  treatment.  The  practitioner 
who  gives  absent  treatment  has  not  the  faintest  con- 
ception where  the  patient  is,  or  what  he  is  doing  at 
the  moment  he  treats  him,  nor  does  he  in  the  least 
care.  His  practice  is  based  absolutely  on  the  teaching 
of  the  Bible,  and  is  entirely  Christian.  Jesus  healed 
not  only  those  who  came  to  him  directly  for  healing, 
but  he  healed  those,  as  in  the  case  of  the  centurion's 
servant,  who  were  unable  to  come.  The  Christian 
Science  practitioner  talks  to  his  patient,  when  the 
latter  is  present,  and  explains  what  the  Christian 
Science  teaching  is,  in  order  to  show  him  how  he  may 
do  without  treatment,  so  that  he  may  learn,  through 
his  own  understanding  of  Christian  Science,  how  to 
meet  his  own  difficulties,  but  it  is  a  matter  of  perfect 
indifference  to  him,  as  far  as  the  actual  treatment  is 
concerned,  whether  the  patient  is  in  the  room  with  him, 
conscious  that  he  is  being  treated,  or  a  thousand  miles 
off,  unconscious  of  the  moment  at  which  he  is  being 
treated.  What  happens  in  either  case  is  that  the 
specific  lie  in  which  the  patient  is  believing  is  destroyed 
in  mortal  mind  and,  being  destroyed  in  mortal  mind, 


34  CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE    HEALING 

vanishes   from  the  consciousness   of   everybody  con- 
cerned. 


RIGHT    TO    INDEPENDENCE 

When  Christian  Scientists  are  asked  why  they  do 
not  endeavor  to  close  the  hospitals  and  to  destroy  the 
contents  of  chemists'  shops,  they  are  tempted  to  smile 
at  the  question.  To  a  Christian  Scientist,  every  single 
person  has  a  right  to  think  for  himself  and  to  act 
for  himself.  If  he  thinks  he  is  benefited  by  being 
operated  upon  for  appendicitis,  in  spite  of  the  deadly 
record  of  operations  for  appendicitis,  no  Christian 
Scientist  would  think  of  interfering  with  him.  If  he 
thinks  that  his  health  can  be  improved  by  drenching 
himself  in  drugs,  in  spite  of  the  record  of  drugs  in 
the  past,  no  Christian  Scientist  would  dream  of  de- 
priving him  of  them.  If  he  thinks  it  is  scientific  prac- 
tice which  confines  one  generation  of  consumptive 
patients  in  rooms  from  which  every  breath  of  air  is 
excluded,  and  exposes  the  other  on  balconies  where 
every  breath  of  air  reaches  them,  no  Christian  Scien- 
tist would  attempt  to  prevent  him  from  adopting  either 
alternative. 

Christian  Scientists  know  perfectly  well  that  the 
way  to  convert  people  is  by  demonstration,  not  by 
persecution.  The  doctors  who,  knowing  the  absolute 
failure  of  medical  science  to  meet  the  woes  of  human- 
ity, would  yet  attempt  to  force  mankind  to  accept  that 
treatment,  whether  they  liked  it  or  not,  are  not  one 
whit  advanced  beyond  the  Inquisition,  which  attempted 
to  make  men  accept  religious  views  which  were  repug- 


VERSUS   MENTAL   SUGGESTION  35 

nant  to  them,  and  will  be  every  whit  as  unsuccessful. 
The  most  dangerous  campaign  upon  which  a  govern- 
ment or  a  nation  can  embark  is  one  of  persecution,  no 
matter  how  skilfully  it  may  be  wrapped  up  in  legal 
quibbles.  The  day  is  past  forever  when  it  can  be 
hoped  that  thought  can  be  burned  in  the  market-place 
or  imprisoned  in  a  dungeon.  Thought  is  free,  and 
freedom  of  thought  will  always  remain,  as  it  always 
has  remained,  to  confound  persecutors,  no  matter  what 
temporary  advantage  may  have  seemed  to  accrue  to 
them  through  the  torture  of  what  they  believed  to  be 
matter.  Whatever  else  may  or  may  not  occur,  the 
doom  of  the  persecutor  is  inevitable  and  irrevocable. 
Mind  does  not  pass  away  with  the  body. 

END     OF     PERSECUTION 

Christian  Science  is  a  little  too  big  to  be  dealt  with 
in  the  drastic  way  so  amiably  suggested  by  some  of 
its  critics.  An  enormous  number  of  thoughtful  men 
and  women,  respected  by  those  among  whom  they 
move  in  their  daily  life,  are  not  to  be  intimidated  or 
suppressed  by  the  clamor  or  threats  generated  by  the 
intolerance  of  those  who  differ  from  them.  They 
claim  the  right,  and  they  will  maintain  the  right,  to 
worship  God  in  their  own  way,  even  though  that  way 
may  not  be  in  accordance  with  the  practice  of  others. 
It  is  a  curious  commentary  on  the  centuries  of  the 
growth  of  what  is  termed  liberty  and  the  observance 
of  what  is  named  Christianity  that  the  human  mind 
should  still  show  indications  of  a  desire  to  confine 
liberty  to  orthodoxy  and  to  measure  Christianity  by 


86  CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE    HEALING 

compulsion.  The  spirit  which  cast  Daniel  into  the 
lions'  den,  and  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and  Abednego 
into  the  fiery  furnace,  has  changed  its  cry,  and  that 
is  all.  The  Romans  threw  the  Christians  to  the  lions. 
When  the  throne  of  the  Caesars  gave  place  to  the 
chair  of  St.  Peter,  the  Christians  bound  the  heretic  to 
the  stake.  The  crowd  which  attended  the  auto  da  fe 
was  as  barbarian  and  brutal  as  the  crowd  which 
screamed  on  the  tiers  of  the  amphitheater.  When 
the  Anglican  took  the  place  of  the  Romanist  in  the 
seat  of  Augustine,  the  rack  was  exchanged  for  the 
boot  and  the  stake  for  the  pillory  and  the  cart-tail. 
When  nonconformity,  escaping  from  the  pillory  and 
the  cart-tail,  established  itself  in  power,  it  proved 
that  it  was  just  as  possible  to  play  the  persecutor  in 
a  steeple-crowned  hat  as  in  a  shovel  one.  Even  when 
the  Anglican  regained  his  power  the  methods  altered, 
but  not  the  spirit,  and  though 

Whitfield  preached  to  the  colliers  grim, 
Bishops  in  lawn  sleeves  preached  at  him. 

Christian  Science  has  come,  among  other  things,  to 
teach  the  world  something  of  what  love  really  means, 
— to  show  it  that  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law,  but 
that  this  law  is  not  a  human  law,  but  the  law  con- 
densed in  the  saying:  "A  new  commandment  I  give 
unto  you.  That  ye  love  one  another;  as  I  have  loved 
you,  that  ye  also  love  one  another." 


Periodicals  Published  by 
The  Christian  Science  Publishing  Society 

Falmouth  and  St.  Paul  Sta.,  Boston,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 

The  Christian  Science  Journal 

Founded  April,  1883,  by  Mary  Baker  Eddy,  Discoverer  and  Founder  of  C'lristian 
flcieiice,  and  author  of  the  Christian  Science  Te^t-book,  "Science  and  Health  vith 
Key  to  the  Scriptures." 

This  monthly  magazine  is  the  official  organ  of  The  First  Church  of  Christ,  Scien- 
tist, in  Boston,  Mass. 

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Tor  all  other  countries  65  cents  annually  for  postage;  single  copy,  for  Canada,  20 
cents;  other  Countries,  25  cents. 

Christian  Science  Sentinel 

A  weekly  periodical  published  every  Saturday,  for  the  home,  containing  articles, 
editorials,  and  special  information  regarding  the  Christian  Science  movement,  also 
testimonials  of  healing  and  news  items  of  general  interest. 

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Der  Herold  der  Christian  Science 

A  monthly  magazine  printed  in  German,  which  publishes  original  and  translated 
.ifticles  bearing  upon  Christian  Science,  aiso  testimonials  of  healing. 

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single  copy,  10  cents.  For  all  other  countries  .idd  25  cents  annually  for  postage; 
single  copy,  12  cents. 


The  Christian  Science  Monitor 

An  international  newspaper  published  daily  except  Sundays  and  legal  holidays. 
Adequate  news  service.  The  various  departments  of  a  modern  newspaper.  Unique 
Home  Forum  page.    Entire  page  of  editorials  dealing  with  the  vital  topics  of  the  day. 

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In  all  other  countries  add  $3.00  annually  for  postage.  In  the  Boston  postal  district, 
$6.00  a  year  by  carrier,  $7.25  by  mail. 

The  Christian  Science  Quarterly 

Published  January,  April,  July,  and  October. 

Contains  the  Lesson-Sermons  which  are  read  at  the  Sunday  services  throughout  the 
year  in  all  the  Christian  Science  churches.    Printed  in  English,  Dutch,  and  German. 

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